It enables the user experience, but is not itself the experience."
-- Kathy Sierra, Serious Pony
That's the problem. The functional purpose of the UI is to get you to the content or let you do something, then get out of the way. The business purpose of the UI, though, is to get customers to buy the thing. "Sell the sizzle, not the steak". That's the driving force behind this endless tweaking of graphic elements.
Here's another kind of UI - automobile dashboards.
It disappears.
It does not draw attention to itself.
It enables the user experience, but is not itself the experience."
-- Kathy Sierra, Serious Pony
That's the problem. The functional purpose of the UI is to get you to the content or let you do something, then get out of the way. The business purpose of the UI, though, is to get customers to buy the thing. "Sell the sizzle, not the steak". That's the driving force behind this endless tweaking of graphic elements.
Here's another kind of UI - automobile dashboards.
http://www.darkroastedblend.com/2012/05/car-dashboards-as-wo...
This is worth careful study. Match up the dashboards with various computer UIs.